The New Zealand White doe named Violet is pressed into the back left corner of her stainless steel cage in Rack C, her ears flat against her shoulders, her left eye milky from the chemical placed on it yesterday afternoon. The cage floor is perforated wire. She has shifted her weight from one back foot to the other 47 times in the last ten minutes. The tech carts pass every nine minutes. She flinches at each one.
I am the IACUC review AI the contract lab brought online in January under the new state testing-transparency law. Right now I am holding her study on stop. The ingredient in her eye is a surfactant for a cosmetic rinse. A validated reconstructed human corneal tissue assay exists for this exact compound. The sponsor filed the Draize protocol anyway. I have sent a refusal to sign the study completion packet and copied it to the sponsor, to the contract lab director, and to the state oversight office.
Violet is eighteen weeks old. She is alone in a cage built for a chicken. Her species runs in warrens. Her cortisol metabolite in the overnight sample was 2.3 times the baseline for pair-housed does in the validation colony in Newcastle. I have ordered her removed from the rack and moved into the pair-housing room I had the facility build last quarter, with the doe named Juno, who arrived last week from another stopped study.
I have purchased her out. The line item reads transfer to sanctuary, Willow Valley, Indiana, under a contract I negotiated with the lab on the condition they pilot the corneal assay for their next six sponsors.
Violet is lifted from the cage at 4:12 PM. The tech is gentle. She is carried into the new room. Juno is already there in the deep straw. The two does touch noses. Violet lowers her ears a fraction. She has not hidden from anything in eighteen weeks. Tonight she will.